Impacting For Eternity
A number of well-known celebrities died in 2016. Famous singers and musicians included David Bowie, Prince, Glen Frey (Eagles), George Martin (producer for the Beatles), Leonard Cohen and this week, George Michael. Actors included Alan Rickman, George Kennedy, Doris Roberts (Everyone Loves Raymond), Gene Wilder, Robert Vaughn, Zsa Zsa Gabor and a few days back, Carrie Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds. Writers such as Lee Harper (To Kill A Mockingbird) and Richard Adams (Watership Down) died in 2016. Political leaders included Fidel Castro and Nancy Reagan. Sporting stars included Muhammad Ali and Arnold Palmer.
Will they be quickly forgotten? They won’t be, but here is something amazing. You and I have the opportunity to make a mark far greater than any of them. “That’s impossible,” you might be thinking. No it’s not. As famous as these ones were, their influence is limited to our time and our earth. We have the opportunity to have an influence beyond both.
In 1 Corinthians 3 the apostle Paul uses an unusual parallel to describe how God will judge all our works. He pictures a fire that blazes through everything we’ve done. Those things done for His glory and following His will are pictured as surviving the fire. Everything else is burnt up. But everything surviving the fire is rewarded. These rewards go beyond our earth and beyond our time. They last both into heaven and into eternity.
Determine to live your life in such a way that impacts not just time but eternity, not just this earth but heaven itself.